Monitoring your Online Efficiency

Some joke that giving computers to salespeople is what caused the recession of the early 90s.  Maybe today’s economic woes are a result of Facebook and YouTube.  The rise of Web 2.0 and social media has almost directly correlated to the drop in the economy.

The clever thing about social media and the rest of today’s Internet is that it fools you in to thinking you are working.  Being without a Facebook or LinkedIn account will soon be like having no email address.  YouTube is the world’s largest broadcaster; a great source for breaking news and commentary that has real value.  These activities waste time but, just as companies in the 90s who tried to ‘ban the web’ from the workplace soon realized, they are necessary.

For most professionals, the problem is not that they play World of Warcraft for hours at a time during the workday, the problem is the long tail of semi-work-related time eaters, emails, scheduling, getting sidetracked when visiting a legitimate work-related website or blog and other time-creep.

RescueTime is a nifty tool that helps us keep on track and keep our time-wasting, low payoff, low productivity and borderline activities to a minimum.  The small, free program installs in minutes and quietly tracks what we do on our PCs.  It’s hard to fool: RescueTime even can distinguish which window you are working on if you have multiple ones open and if you walk away from the PC it will know you are not there because nothing is clicked.

The RescueTime interface includes a report and ability for the user to define what they personally consider to be time-wasting or not.  Since writing reports and proposals is a productive part of my business I prioritized it as a +2 for example, same with my in-house investment analysis software and my phone.  My phone is wired to the PC so it’s easy to track.  Offline activities like meetings are a little tricky, there are plug-ins, updates and a premium version that enhance this.  Despite using my Facebook page and YouTube economic commentary channel for some work related tasks, I rated them both at -2, the lowest possible efficiency rating.  Graphics designers, accountants and other professionals can tailor RescueTime to rate programs and websites as productive or unproductive or neutral activities.  For example, email and the calendar for me are 0, or neutral, Huffington Post a -1 but Bloomberg a +1, you get the idea.

The next version of the software will even have a pop-up window that you can optionally enable: “Sorry Sally, you’ve spent over 30 minutes on the YouTube, if you really want to stay please enter your password.”

Many first react that people should just have willpower and not need such a tool, this is true however the simple reporting and interface gives a level of measurement that you wouldn’t have on your own.  Some of the facts might surprise users.  Everyone who has taken a time management course knows that email should only be checked a couple times a day and in time-blocks; yet we all know busy executives who check email as much as 10 times per hour…that’s every six minutes.  For most professionals, the problem is not that they play World of Warcraft for hours at a time during the workday, the problem is the long tail of semi-work-related time eaters, emails, scheduling, getting sidetracked when visiting a legitimate work-related website or blog and other time-creep.  RescueTime also offers the ability to set goals:  minimum or maximum of a certain number of hours per week or day on certain activities.  If you meet or exceed your goals you can opt to receive an email or popup.

For managers RescueTime is a must.  Advanced reporting in the paid version allows managers to track multiple employees, projects and teams and share certain data with other.  In a heavily regulated industry like financial services, review of employee activity is a must – viewing cache files of visited sites and other tools are the norm.  RescueTime seems a little less invasive and friendlier and might help employees (and managers) self-monitor their actions.

I’d like to offer an alternative instead of featuring just one product, but I haven’t found one yet.  I’d browse the web looking for one and write some more but I know my new friend RescueTime is watching so I think I’ll get back to work.

Bruce Fenton
Bruce is an economic adviser, founder and Managing Director of Atlantic Financial Inc. the Internet’s first full service investment company and a specialist in web technology.  Bruce is interested in new technologies, next generation practices and focuses on globalization and the changing economy.